Latest Go-To AI Stack For Solo Mobile Developers: Claude Code & Nano Banana

And the last time when we did it
with GPD
with SH GPD it was like a lot back and forth. You copy the code, you paste it, then something doesn't compile. Oh, there is this error. How often here
it errors do come. They do come but it is able to debug them instantly.
Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of AI 101 from Tension. I'm Roman and I'm just
Hi Roman, it's nice to be back here, you know, after a year and Yeah,
exactly. Exactly. We've done a video. If you are new subscriber, you might not know, but we've done already a video with a new last year and we figure out how to use AI to help
Yeah.
game developers
and especially solo game developers, all small studios, right? Anu did anything change?
A lot of things changed since last one

year. You know, so many tools coming up, so many uh new ideas popping out and the way I have been making games and apps now has also changed a lot. So I'm happy to discuss a lot of what's going on with my journey as a solo developer and what's happening all around.
So yeah. Yeah, we we already agreed with Anu that he'll share a screen, show us what he does uh with his uh uh game development journey and everything.
Uh before we jump in, I'll ask Anu to do a quick uh introduction of himself for the people that uh I'm an indie game developer. I have been making games for about 6 years now and making apps for about 13 years now. So I've been indie deving since the past 13 years. Postco I joined a couple of studios as an employee as a game designer game producer to make games. For the last 3

years I've been making my own games. I started off with browser games, web games. They did close to 40 million players across different platforms. And one of the games that contributed to this was generated entirely using AI. The code, the art and it was made in Unity. So that helped me set my foot in the browser games industry. You know, I got close to a lot of publishers. And recently I've been working on an indie mobile game called Squishy Cats, which is also doing quite decent uh at its current state. A lot of people love the game and I'm very happy to work on it and I'm also starting to build uh some iOS applications now. A lot of this is also possible.
Just wanted to say this that you are not only games now.
I started my journey with apps and you know it's kind of coming back to a whole circle now doing apps again.
Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. what what make you made a switch now?
Uh back to apps. So there's a couple of things I first of all uh you know my games journey my browser games journey was kind of going well but I could not scale myself up after a certain point. there was kind of a limit that I was reaching in terms of my monthly income and my monthly revenue and I was kind of getting getting a bit saturated by making games and I noticed a lot of solo indie developers are kind of making decent money by building apps. So I thought let's give it a try. Let's kind of just experiment. see if I can build an app, if I can try some things out, if I can even, you know, reach customers or people on the app stores because that is what I started off with. And with AI, it is very easy to build apps compared to games because games have different layers, different components to it. You know, so many different aspects you have to take care

of. But with apps, it's a little bit different. I think we can dive deeper when uh [snorts] uh in in in our session. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it. Like I think a good starting point is like you and some other people keep talking about this
uh cloud
cloud code if I'm not mistaken. That's the name.
I I know what is cloud like alternative to the chat GPT.
So what's the difference? What is the whole noise is about? Maybe you can show us what it is and show us some of the use cases do with it.
Okay. So just to give you a brief overview, chat GPT and the cloud that you use in the browser, they are basically just uh chat applications which are connected to their LLM through an API. Now these APIs are different models. So chat GPT has GPT5, GPT4, GPTO3, whatever. But chatgpd.com is basically a wrapper that connects the

API. Whatever messages you send, it goes to the API. Same for claude. Now claude has its own LLM model called opus set 4 4.1 just like chat GPD has different models. Now these models they have different parameters, different factors, different training data. So how you interact with them and how they respond back changes a lot. Now clawed code uh is kind of like cursor. Have you tried cursor? Do you know about cursor? also like before cloud mode I only heard about.
Uh no problem. So these are basically coding agents you know you can just uh install them into your desktop system. You can tell them hey I want to build a website they will go and just set up the files the directories the entire scripts and give you the final project. Before this you had to go to chat GPT copy the script the code come back to your uh code editor and paste it manually. But now they do all of this together. So let

me share my screen with you.
So it's basically an interface the difference. And I remove this friction when I copy.
Yes, they do all of it for you.
I'm working basically on this mini video making app for example. Uh I made it using cloud code. It's a very simple app, very landing simple landing page and stuff like that. Uh now how you use claude code is basically in a terminal you have this kind of a terminal. It's a very geek nerdy kind of a thing. So, it's not very friendly for
all kinds of people, but you basically have to
go to the directory of your folder, which is you just copy it here and you just type in claude like this and it will load up your interface. Okay. Now, welcome to cloud code and

this and this and that. So you just have to type like you type in chat GPT like hey what is this project about and it will it will go through the scripts and it will give you an overview you know so it's thinking right now it's going to go through the files and it's going to tell you what it is about now it will uh do everything for you it will update the scripts it will debug it will test everything it's giving you all of these ideas. A I want a I don't know image editing feature in my web page. It can create files, directories. The main reason it is getting so popular is because it's very smart compared to GPT or Gemini or any other thing. So it will

form a list of todos you know like how a programmer would do like they have to have a list of tasks. So analyze current web page design image editing interface implement the functionality add image upload and test the image editing feature. It will update the tools like okay this part is done. and I have to work on the next part now. And it's very very proactive that way I would say.
Uh-huh. And the last time when we did it
with GPD
with JPD, it was like a lot back and forth.
You copied the code, you paste it, then something doesn't compile you. Oh, there is this error. How often here
it errors do come. they do come but it is able to debug them instantly you know so with chat GPD if I had to let's say type in 50 messages I have to you know send something to chat GPT come back to

my editor write the code if there's any error I have to go back to chat GPT send the error like this is the error with this it is maybe just eight or 10 messages because it gets the error uh here itself so it tests by running the application by website or iOS application or whatever it will then be able to see the error what error is it and it can automatically just fix the error itself.
Yeah.
Gotcha. Okay. Okay. Let's
let me see uh if it's okay uh disabled the server. It will it's still working. So we'll get back to it. But yeah, I think you can use this with uh most of websites, most of iOS applications, maybe even Python or JavaScript applications. I tried it with Unity. It's good for a basic setup, basic start like setting up your project

directories, files, but after a point with Unity, it does not work very well. So I preferred manually copy pasting from claude or chart GPT. I mean I I I tried like five to six hours of just working with Unity with this trying to make a new Tik Tok popular game but after a point it wasn't doing it very well.
I see. So your main use case for this is it like building a project from scratch?
Yes, from scratch. in the is it apps apps or games because now you do both.
So uh from the last two years my focus was mostly games but now I've
just shifted it to apps. I'm just working on one game Squishy Cats. Uh but most of my time is going around building apps. These are like most of the apps

that I'm working on. Like you can see here there's like just a ton of apps. I'm using this tool called Astro which helps you you know do ASO research keywords and what keywords are popular, what keywords are not popular and for my game uh also I've been trying to use it. I I'm getting some good improvement in rankings for my game uh squishy cats on iOS store. So I'm tracking what kind of keywords work really well and I think these kind of tools are very useful for indie developers because they wouldn't know otherwise how to do it or how to get organic reach because that is the most important for solo developers.
Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Super important. Uh but have you tried running user acquisition
for squishy cats? Yes. for some of my

iOS apps. No. Uh for Squishy Cats, what I did was I was posting a lot of videos on Tik Tok. Uh just some very engaging videos. I could show you some if you are interested to see.
Yeah. Yeah. Sure. I'm sure you've done that.
No, no, no. They not they're not with AI actually. [laughter] They are just uh my own ideas. Yeah. Okay. So,
show us show us. No, wait. Let me Yeah. So, it's like Okay, let's go. Yeah. So, captions and like like a very satisfying interesting hook, you know. So, like the first 3 seconds is just like cat squishing around and you have a caption voice over and this makes the viewer stay till the till till till till till till till till till till till till till till till till till till till till till till till till till the end, you know. And then they go out on the app store. They search for the game by the name Squishy Cats and they go and download the game.

They comment and they like the videos on Tik Tok. And I take the best performing videos and I
put it on Google ads to run some paid user acquisition which is performing quite well.
So the CTR IPM for these videos are quite good because they performed well on socials as well. Okay. So your recipe actually here is you go to Tik Tok
versus a normal account
for scripture cats uploads
the videos your creatives
you trust Tik Tok algorithm to kind of uh make it viral.
Yeah. even if it does not go viral uh you can get downloads if your video is uh very engaging and if it converts well you can get downloads so on Tik Tok there is like if it goes beyond 1,000 views it can go like 10,000 or 20,000

views but even if it is less than 1,000 views you can get downloads
I got the part about the Tik Tok
Mhm. and getting those organically. Then you're getting uh the ones that perform well. How do you know they perform well? Likes or
uh you can see the engagement, the likes. They also have some analytics, you know, how long the user is watching a video for. And if it is performing well, they will boost your video to other audience. So you get uh you your your views increase basically which uh which is a good signal that your video is performing well and yeah I take the good performing videos I just as a test I put it in Google ads and they performed quite well they're performing quite well like the CTR the IPM the CPI it's all quite good I was also assigned a Google ad manager and

she helped me set up the campaign she did some settings, optimize the campaign because I was trying to do it myself and I just burned a lot of money. I burned like$100 $200.
I got like very high CPI and users that were not converting very well. But then I was assigned a manager and she did a lot of quick settings which uh made my campaigns profitable.
Sweet.
Yeah.
Did did you do it because like how did it happen? Is it like they do it for all the solo devs or just because you're like internet celebrity? How?
No, no, no. Nothing like that. So, I think with these ad platforms, if you're setting up an account and if you're spending some money, they will assign you an uh ad manager, an account manager.
Okay.
It depends how how much your budget is and if your budget increases, they will assign you a different manager to give you more specialized service or something like that.
Yeah. Okay. And props to Google uh for helping indie dev. That's cool. That's

cool because that's one of the pain points uh not necessarily with Google but with a guys that starts advertising. They really need help. They need this expertise.
But often platforms don't really care. So because they they're not as much money as a bigger place, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's mostly wasting money money early on, but if you're not optimizing Yeah. Mhm. Gotcha. Okay, that's cool. That's good. Um, another thing that I hearing [snorts] a lot in the past week for sure is this new Google Nana banana. What is the right name for it?
Yeah, nano banana.
Okay. Okay.
Nano banana. Yeah. Right.
Yeah. I It's a pretty good image generator, you know. I think uh it's maybe one of the best ones that I have seen and that people are talking about right now. Yeah, I think the best thing is uh you can add elements to an image without

changing the entire image or something like that. Uh basically this is uh more of an API kind of a thing like in chat GPT the interface is very user friendly to generate images or something like that. But this thing that you are seeing Google AI studio this is more of a developers uh console or something like that. Nano banana is basically a new image generation model maybe you can say like GPT4 GPT5 claude Gemini pro this is Gemini flash but they have named it as nano banana and you can uh take about any image. Let me do one thing. Let me take a screenshot of our current call and I can put it into the chat and maybe add some elements to our
thing. Okay. So, and I don't know, let's maybe give you a Christmas hat. What do

you think?
Yeah. Yeah. Super.
Add a Christmas hat on top of the man. And we just it is also quite fast uh I think compared to GPT and most people are using this to make image editor apps and maybe someh you see.
Yeah. Yeah. It looks very well like almost almost real or real. Yeah. Probably people don't know. Yes. They always assume it's real, right? fits everything very perfectly. So you have the dot as well and yeah
but this is cool. This is fun. Uh but you were doing some assets for your
games. How do you do that?

Yeah, it's quite simple. You just ask it to generate an object sheet. Uh
we generate an object sheet. Since we talking about Christmas, let's just uh take in Christmas and Halloween since Halloween is upcoming now of uh Halloween and Christmas elements. What kind of art style do you prefer?
Kawai.
Kawai
because of your favorite watermelon. [laughter]
And uh what category is it like food? Is it weapons? Is it I don't know vehicles? What do you want to do?
Can we do animals?
Yeah, animals. Uh, it does not generate transparent background, but let's still ask for it. Uh, 2D for a game. Let's just keep it simple.

Yeah, I think it understands image composition quite uh quite well. compared to other models. Okay. So, okay. You get like a ghost, you get a reindeer, a reindeer with Halloween. So, it's like Christmas and Halloween mix. Santa with a dog. And
right
Yeah. This this this was quite fast. In GPT, it would have taken you around one to two minutes just to do this entire same thing. shows how spoiled you are. know like and before CH GPT it would take what a designer
a [laughter] designer some paid of free assets and
yeah yeah yeah
so much yeah I think uh a lot of productivity has improved a lot with
you can maybe ask it to add more elements to this whatever but yeah the

the the point being uh this is a good model and every day it will keep improving, right? Like all of these
AI tools.
So you just got to build whatever you have in your mind and you can build it today.
Gotcha.
Um how do you keep track of all this? Do you really kind of dedicate part of your day to research or you just
So I just uh scroll a lot of Twitter, you know. I think Twitter is a good source of information for
uh these tools compared to LinkedIn because on Twitter the information spreads very fast and every person posts multiple tweets in a day. On LinkedIn it is maybe one or two post every day. So the spreading of information is very fast on Twitter. And I follow a lot of these indie developers, a lot of these [snorts]

people who make ideas, products, and they keep posting about these tools. So I go ahead and try them out. That way I have a better understanding of what tools I can use for my own ideas, which uh helps a lot.
Gotcha. And then you just start doing them and see if it works.
Yeah. Just start using them,
seeing how it works out. Yeah. Uh I don't dedicate any specific time, you know, I just scroll Twitter maybe 10 15 minutes in the morning or sometime during the day and I see what's new, what's happening.
Gotcha. And um what are the biggest challenges right now? If you could do like anything like that, what would it be? What would would you change? uh the biggest challenge is I think still marketing and distributing your ideas. We can because you can build it very easily. We have seen that now. We've

seen it uh how quickly you can just do things. But if if let's say if I made this sticker images, you know, how do I make sure that people can see it? How do I make sure like it is getting the attention it deserves? And uh if if if I want to make money from it, I can make it like $1, $2. But I still need to make it reach a lot of people. You can do that via social media, via, I don't know, Reddit, uh Tik Tok, Instagram. If if you can learn how to, you know, just market things very well, you can uh just do about anything.
I see. I see. Okay. Um yeah, good to know. Um, maybe it's a good time to wrap up, but before we wrap up,
I'll let you talk a little bit about your Discord community,

uh, YouTube channel. Do you still do a YouTube channel, LinkedIn? We'll leave all of the links in the descriptions, but like just let people know how they can find you or follow you.
Yeah, sure. I have a small Discord community. It's around 1,700 people now. It's like full of developers, app developers, game developers, mostly game developers making web games, people using AI, people making some apps. The the best part is I think a lot of people after joining the Discord server started building web games and making money off it. You know, their first income, their first uh $1,000 or something like that. And it's completely free. is it's just exchange of information because when you send information to someone else about what you know, they learn from it and they're able to apply it. So yeah, I think the link would be in the description. You can feel free to join. My YouTube is still on a bit of a pause right now. I will start resuming it soon. I found a very good editor and I'll start making

videos with him. So yeah.
Gotcha. Um yeah, we also put your LinkedIn link. Uh I'll also put our um uh our discord community anu is also there so you can ask uh or chat with him there. We are not competing with our communities for mobile developers. Uh
it's completely different. So yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we talk about the stuff like user acquisition, monetization. Uh I think that's our strong side. We're not that big. We're around 300 now, but uh yeah, I'll still leave the link. Uh and we are moderating to make sure that only developers are there. Um yeah, um leaving all of the links here. Any other uh thoughts? I know um any last words, anything?
No, I think that's it. Just uh you know, keep building your ideas, keep making

some good products to whoever is watching this. And if you have still not uh figured it out, just keep at it. You'll figure it out sooner or later.
Super super super inspiring. Uh thanks a lot. If you guys like the video, please uh give us a like. We might do another video with Zanu sooner than one year. If we see like that there is a lot of interest,
leave your qu questions in the comments too. That's also very welcome. I'll ask Ano to answer. Um, yep. Then until next one. Thanks a lot, Anu.
Thank you for having me.
Cheers.